


Memories

by exactly13percent (superagentwolf)



Series: The AU Court [6]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-The King's Men, Short One Shot, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superagentwolf/pseuds/exactly13percent
Summary: Andreil Week 2018|Day 3: DMV, Carnival, Cityscape-There are a lot of memories for him to replace.The good thing is, Neil has a very good person to help replace them.





	Memories

 “I what?”

“You’re going to need a license,” Kevin says.

He acts like it’s not a problem, but that’s not the feeling Neil gets. He thinks about his name—his new one, the one he chose—and the FBI. He thinks about how he has half a dozen licenses and passports, all declaring him anyone else but Neil.

“Sure,” Neil says. “I’ll get one.”

* * *

The woman tells him to turn left as she stares critically at him over the rim of her glasses.

Neil does what she asks. When he turns, he sees a familiar park. He stopped there one morning, when he was on a run and memory hit him with a vengeance. He made a call without thinking and Andrew was there three minutes later, pulling into the parking lot with his hair still a mess.

They spent the morning there. Neil watched the sun rise into the sky while Andrew smoked.

“Switch lanes. Two right.”

He does, and sees the burger place a block down. It’s an old-fashioned drive-in. The school had a themed night once, and Andrew didn’t want to go but Neil mentioned he’d never had a milkshake. They ended up in Andrew’s car with the radio pounding and the windows rolled up to avoid everyone else.

It occurs to Neil that he should really start paying attention to the driving test.

The woman gives him a few more directions—turn here, take a left two streets down, take the next right, parallel park here. It seems to pass quickly and then Neil is heading back to the tiny brick building on the street corner where he started.

Andrew’s car is parked at the front. Neil can see his silhouette.

Neil goes inside and does what he needs to. He tries not to feel some way about having his picture taken—blue eyes, red hair, scars—but the awkwardness lingers. He takes the piece of paper he’s given and goes outside, where Andrew is waiting.

After he opens the car door, Neil buckles his seatbelt and takes a second to look at Andrew. It’s early—Allison told them it would be busy, so they came before the place even opened—and Andrew looks like he’s been napping in the car. The back of his hair is flattened in odd ways.

“Breakfast?” Neil asks. Andrew shrugs, but he turns the car on.

Andrew takes them to a drive-in fast food place a few blocks away and they both order bacon burritos with tater tots. Today, Andrew parks facing the undeveloped space behind the building and rolls his windows down.

“We’ve been here before,” Neil remembers. “Didn’t you drop your burger?”

“Shut up.”

Neil smiles to himself. Thinks about that afternoon, when they left school for no other reason than because they needed each other and the silence of being together.

He likes that he can find pieces of Andrew around him, like ghostly holograms flickering in bright colors. They pull him out of his bad memories, and those seem to come less these days.

It may be because Neil is distracted by the way Andrew looks, silhouetted by the sun.

* * *

Andrew lets Neil drive.

He doesn’t usually give up the driver’s seat, unless maybe they’re alone and Andrew is in a mood where he just wants to watch Neil.

This is different.

Andrew goes to the passenger door and Neil doesn’t hesitate, even if he feels a stutter in his heart. He thinks about what it means—control, trust, something he can’t quite name—and he wants to do something for Andrew. He’s just not sure what.

“Rookie in the front!” Nicky cries. He laughs and Kevin just rolls his eyes.

“He’s driven before,” Kevin says.

Nicky rolls his eyes, then. “You’re no fun, Kevin. Come on. We’re going to a carnival!”

They are. Neil has never been to one. They’re on a list, because they’re crowded and noisy and the people that work there have very sharp memory. They have a type of bond and understanding that Mary respected, and stayed far away from.

The nomadic life of carnivals always seemed to echo his run. Neil thinks in another life, he might have been a trapeze artist.

Or maybe he would have fallen, anyway.

The drive is nice. Andrew concedes one or two levels of the volume, and Neil finds it easier to let go while he drives. He’s focused on keeping everyone in the car alive, which isn’t hard but is definitely enough to occupy him. When they get to Columbia, he takes streets he’s never gone down before and follows a steadily growing flow of traffic toward the Ferris wheel he can already see looming in the distance.

The other Foxes are right behind him. Aaron and Katelyn are with Allison and Renee; Dan and Matt are together. When Neil pulls into the lot, it’s already packed. They have to go back and forth down a few rows of parking before they find a spot.

“I’m gonna kick your ass at the water guns,” Nicky tells Kevin.

Kevin just gives him an unimpressed look.

Neil doesn’t mind them. He shoves his keys into his back pocket and walks into the carnival.

There’s a lot to see. The screaming children put him on edge at first, but the music and attendants yelling over everything eventually block them out. Neil wanders between different areas and listens to the music change—something that sounds like heavy metal for a roller coaster, something else suspenseful for the wheel that swings and rotates, a sort-of parody of a Disney song for the children’s ride. It’s like wandering between different countries, all shoved up against each other.

Somewhere along the way, Nicky convinces Neil to join him for the water gun game. Neil looks at Andrew, who just says, “They’re all rigged anyway.”

Rigged or not, they go one round where Kevin and Neil are tied. Nicky takes a backseat to record them facing off, and he cheers for Neil the entire time. “Kick his ass, Neil!”

Neil would say something, but he’s too busy concentrating on the little dot in the distance. He ends up winning, for some reason, and he turns to Kevin.

“Drew’s right. They’re rigged.”

Kevin just shrugs and moves away to something else. That’s a nice new thing; his competitive streak isn’t gone—it could never be—but there are some things he allows. Some defeats he doesn’t care about.

Like carnival games, apparently.

Kevin lets it go and Neil is given a row of stuffed animals to pick from. There’s a stingray—he doesn’t know why—along with a few dogs, cats, and some zoo animals. He looks a little too long and ends up picking a little lion.

Nicky is talking rapid-fire about their lunch choices when Neil walks up to him and Andrew. Aaron and Katelyn linger nearby, and Katelyn has a frozen lemonade. Neil doesn’t really pay attention to them. He walks over to Andrew and brushes his wrist with two fingers—a touch that is allowed, now, with no question.

Andrew turns and Neil holds the lion between them. It takes a second for Andrew to drag his gaze to the toy, and then his mouth flattens into a line. Neil tries to discern whether he’s trying not to laugh or trying not to say something too nice.

“Oh my God, that’s so cute,” Nicky says. He breaks the odd stalemate.

Neil shrugs. “I won it. I figured—”

He doesn’t finish. Andrew reaches for the lion and Nicky suddenly has his phone pointed toward them. Nicky grins and says, “I wasn’t talking about the lion.”

Oh.

Andrew flips Nicky off. He holds the lion in his hands and stares into its eyes like he’s testing it somehow.

Neil tries and fails to hold back an amused grin. “Does he check out?”

A tilt of the head. Hazel eyes that should be bored, like Andrew’s face, but are instead bright with a new spark. Andrew shrugs. “He’s fine.”

Neil smiles to himself and follows the others toward the food trucks a few feet away.

Andrew doesn’t let go of the lion for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

There are supposed to be fireworks at night. Matt suggests they drive down the road a ways to see them better. They tune their radios to the right station and head out a few minutes ahead of the show, then find a spot near and empty field where they can park.

Most of the Foxes linger in or around the cars. Kevin gets out to stretch, even though he’s been walking all day, and Nicky goes to talk with Matt and Dan.

Andrew stays in his car, so Neil stays, too. He sits in the passenger seat and looks down at Andrew’s hand. He doesn’t realize he’s looking, though, until Andrew pointedly says, “Do it, coward.”

Neil snorts. He reaches out and laces their hands together. Andrew’s lion is on the dashboard, sitting in the corner to his left. It faces the world like a tiny sentinel for them.

“How was it?” Neil asks. He doesn’t say the words fun or like, because they’re both still a little far from thing that simple. That complicated.

Andrew’s thumb traces something on the back of Neil’s hand. He might even be doing it without thinking, but Neil won’t say anything because he doesn’t want it to stop. “Good.”

Good. Good is good. It’s better than fine. Neil nods and smiles. He wishes he could get closer, but all he can do is lean awkwardly over the console to rest his head on Andrew’s shoulder.

Which he does, of course.

“Have you ever seen fireworks?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve always seen them from far away,” Neil says. “I always wanted to go with family. With friends. But after a while, I gave up on that. And they sounded too much like gunshots.”

Andrew’s hand tightens a little. Neil closes his eyes for a moment and lifts their hands without thinking. He presses his lips to Andrew’s hand. The feeling of skin against his mouth sparks a low burn in him and he is very tempted to do something else.

Tempted, but he doesn’t. He won’t go anywhere Andrew doesn’t take him.

“Why are you watching, then?”

“Replacing,” Neil says. His eyes are still closed. “Like smoke. Or a hand on my neck.”

Andrew’s little circles stop. His thumb doesn’t move and Neil worries he did something wrong. Instead of anger or distance, though, he hears the sound of Andrew turning in his seat.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes, always yes,” Neil mumbles. He opens his eyes just a little to watch Andrew lean in.

Neil could not care less about who’s outside or what they’re doing. All his world is encompassed in Andrew, whose hands are on Neil’s face like they are containing him. They hold him now, in the moment, and Neil is grateful for them.

Andrew kisses him lazily, like they have all the time in the world, and Neil realizes they do. They have as much time as they want, and that’s the best thing about it.

There’s a pop and Neil’s breath catches. Outside the car, a firework explodes and the Foxes cheer. Andrew pulls back a little, but his lips move against Neil’s when he speaks. “You’re missing the show.”

“This is much better,” Neil says. He smiles a little.

“Fool,” Andrew mutters, but he does kiss Neil one more time before he draws away.

He still holds Neil’s hand while they watch the fireworks bloom in the sky, the colors bright and sparkling against the black night. Neil breathes in everything about the moment—the smell of smoke drifting their way, the body spray Andrew wears, the sandalwood smell inside the car—and holds it in.

He files the memory away to replace the nights he spent hiding, and the ones he spent running.

It might be one of his favorites.

**Author's Note:**

> If you read the previous fic, you know I absolutely fucked up and switched days 2 and 3. Oh well.  
> I hope you enjoy this little fic! I hope you enjoy all the little fics to fill Andreil week!


End file.
